Favourite childhood books

[rich p]

Jennings and Derbyshire - middle-class, boarding school stuff.
I was brainwashed which is why I'm now a poncey intellectual highbrow

 

[Garry A]

Roald Dahl's The Twits, loved it but surprised I grew up so well adjusted reading stuff like that.

 

[marknotgeorge]

Roddy the Roadman! I remember buying thid for about 10p from the library. It's probably where I get my interest in roadsigns from.

 

[marknotgeorge]

Oh, and Watership Down. But that's not a childhood book, as it's still one of my favourites.

 

[slowmotion]

Thomas the Tank Engine was a big hit. I loathed Swallows and Amazons. Biggles was great fun a bit later, then I discovered James Bond novels aged about ten. My febrile youthful imagination went into overdrive as I read the slightly naughtier passages.

 

[Cubist]

Anyone remember Bulldog Drummond?

 

[snorri]

Biggles.

Me too, after I had given up on .......

 

[Saluki]

My Dad bought me a whole load of Sammy The Shunter books. I loved them. I had Torchy The Battery Boy annuals too. They were all a B before my T but I enjoyed them nonetheless. I inherited my Aunt's complete collection of Noddy books, which got nicked in a burglery in the 80's and were probably worth something. When I was a kid I would read anything with print on them, especially if it involved horses. The parent's wouldn't let us watch much TV so there were a lot of books in our house. Far too much Enid bloomin' Blyton though.
I discovered Dick Francis at about age 11, then Neville Shute, J R R Tolkein and so on and so forth. Much better than the never ending ladybird books that the school seemed to think that we all thrived on.

 

[slowmotion]

I just remembered Hammond Innes. Oh dear, what turgid rubbish. Neville Shute was a bit better, but nothing compared to Ian Fleming's descriptions of breasts, sadism and violence. A heady stew for a ten year old.

 

[Bobby Mhor]

I always prefered Escort, the stories were much better.

Eh, I'm talking black and white days

 

[hoopdriver]

Tom Sawyer
Huckleberry Finn
Kidnapped
Treasure Island
Around the World in Eighty Days
The Fu Manchu books by Sax Rohmer
Sherlock Holmes (especially The Hound of the Baskervilles)
And an anthology of short stories mainly out of the '20s and '30s called Great Tales of Action and Adventure.

 

[threebikesmcginty]

Tom Sawyer
Huckleberry Finn
Kidnapped
Treasure Island
Around the World in Eighty Days
The Fu Manchu books by Sax Rohmer
Sherlock Holmes (especially The Hound of the Baskervilles)
And an anthology of short stories mainly out of the '20s and '30s called Great Tales of Action and Adventure.

 

[Joshua Plumtree]

Tom Sawyer
Huckleberry Finn
Kidnapped
Treasure Island
Around the World in Eighty Days
The Fu Manchu books by Sax Rohmer
Sherlock Holmes (especially The Hound of the Baskervilles)
And an anthology of short stories mainly out of the '20s and '30s called Great Tales of Action and Adventure.

Did someone give you a list of Great Literary Works to be read by boys before the age of 10!

The Secret Seven and Famous Five for me I'm afraid. Followed, in my more mature years, by Agatha Christie's Poirot and Miss Marple!

 

[tyred]

I had forgotten about Tom Sawyer and Huck FInn! Loved both.

 

[fimm]

I loved all the Arthur Ransome books (Swallows & Amazons etc).
Also liked the Enid Blyton school stories (St Claires and Mallory Towers) when I was small. And an enormous series set in a Chalet School.
I'm another who would read "anything with print on it". I read a lot of Hammond Innes and Dick Francis, but not so many Neville Shute - but I would say I would be into my teens by then. I guess what you read would depend to an extend on what your parents had in the house!